


Regret

by anneapocalypse



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hawke Escapes the Fade (Dragon Age), Loghain Left in the Fade (Dragon Age), Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition, Purple Hawke (Dragon Age), Reunions, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26289055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: Hawke returns to Fenris after the events at Adamant.
Relationships: Fenris/Female Hawke
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

> I presume that a Hawke with a love interest still around would return to them before hoofing it all the way to Weisshaupt, so assume this happens before that.

It's so quiet in Kirkwall these days. Fenris hasn't yet grown accustomed to it. The war between mages and templars has for all practical purposes ended. Across the water, the Gallows sits empty, the red lyrium figure of Mad Meredith presiding over a silent courtyard. The militant mages have joined the Inquisition in the south and the rest have fled Maker knows where. Fenris cannot say he is displeased with the situation.

There is one mage he misses. 

His stolen mansion lies empty still, and Fenris occupies it as easily as before, yet it feels emptier without Hawke's visits. Donnic still comes to play diamondback. Aveline looks in on him, fusses about his squatting in Hightown, and asks him to dinner. Fenris avoids Lowtown, having no desire to run into Merrill. Isabela is at sea. Sebastian has gone back to Starkhaven. Varric is down south with the Inquisition, though he writes frequently, letters Fenris unfolds and reads with care by the firelight. His reading is getting faster, fewer words he has to stop and sound his way through letter by letter. Hawke would be proud.

The latest letter said she was on her way home.

Fenris tries not to sit and calculate how far ahead of her the letter would have arrived.

The Hawke estate is in the care of the dwarven groundskeeper for now. Fenris is welcome there, of course. He has a key, even. Yet without Hawke, there is no reason to be there. It is not _his_ home, no more than this dusty manor cluttered with cobwebs and empty wine bottles.

Without her, it turns out, nowhere particularly feels like home.

Fenris folds the letter and lays it on the mantle, then turns around and blinks because Hawke is standing there in the doorway, in the flesh. He never even heard the front door, but her voice when she says "Fenris" is real, heavy with relief and exhaustion and so much more.

"Hawke," he breathes and crosses the distance between them with a few quick steps.

Alessandra lays her staff against the wall, strips off that absurd breastplate she always wears and drops it with a clatter and they embrace, fiercely. Her arms encircle him like steel and he clings to her even tighter, and she breathes a long sigh over his shoulder. She smells of the road and travel, of leather and dust and sweat and the outdoors. Her cheek is soft against his, her dark hair tied neatly back in her signature bun.

"You came to me first," he says warmly.

"Before the market or the Hanged Man, yes."

Fenris snorts. Hawke makes no move to pull away, and neither does he. "I was thinking of your home."

"It's not home without you."

Warmth spreads through his chest, and Fenris brushes a stray lock of hair back from her face, and kisses her. Alessandra kisses him back warmly, longingly, cupping his face with one hand.

When they break at last, he looks into her dark eyes, full of affection, and sorrow.

"What happened?" he asks. "Come in, sit with me, I'll open a bottle. There are still a few in the cellar."

Hawke lets out a long breath. "I could do with a drink."

"And the talking?"

She cracks a smile. "Oh, we can throw that in too."

They pass a bottle back and forth by the cold hearth. Nothing very high quality, some Orlesian swill, but it's good enough. Fenris lets her get in a few pulls before he asks again.

"Tell me of your journey," he says. "How is Varric?"

"He's well. I mean, as well as anyone can be. He was right about the Herald—the Inquisitor, I mean, she prefers that."

"Does she, now."

"She's not what I expected," Hawke says. "Doesn't put on airs. Just wants to help. Varric said I'd get along with her, when he wrote. He was right."

"A mage, isn't she?"

"From the Ostwick Circle, when there was a Circle. A lot of mages at Skyhold these days. Probably for the best you didn't come."

"Probably." They both know that isn't why he stayed home. They both know that had she asked, Fenris would have followed her into an army of mages.

Maker's breath, he did it once.

"We lost Loghain," she says. "In the Fade."

"The Senior Warden?" Fenris met him only briefly—a gruff, practical man. Sometime war hero, sometime traitor. Some say his conscription was an act of mercy; others say it was his sentence. Fenris supposes it could be both. "I didn't think he was a mage."

"He isn't. Wasn't. It's… a long story. We… fell into the Fade, physically, with the Inquisitor." The very thought makes Fenris flinch. "He stayed behind, to fight off a great demon, to buy the rest of us time to escape."

She isn't looking at Fenris, but somewhere off in the distance. Something is eating at her. It has taken him years to break through that shell of hers, that outward Hawke who always has a joke, a smile, a quip for every occasion, humor to hide her pain. She lets him see it now, sometimes, and she is trying now, but she is struggling.

He sets down the wine bottle and prods gently, "What is it?"

Her dark eyes turn downward. "I offered to be the one to stay behind. I felt… responsible."

He is not surprised, but it stings to hear all the same. "Because of Corypheus?"

"Yes." She looks up, sorrow in her brown eyes. "Part of me still feels I should have. I loosed that monster upon the world—"

"You killed him. You couldn't have known—" 

"I dragged Loghain into this. And then I left him behind."

Fenris suspects there is more to the story. "I presume you did not order him to stay."

"Oh, no, that's exactly what I did. 'Sorry, Senior Warden! Nice knowing you! Give my regards to Xebenkeck.'" Alessandra snorts, picks up the bottle and takes a long swig. Fenris waits, leans one elbow on the arm of his chair. She sets the bottle down. "He said that he had already cheated death twice over, and this was no more than his duty."

"Twice over?" 

"Because the Wardens conscripted him instead of executing him, I suppose. I'm not sure what he meant by the twice part."

Fenris cracks a smile. "I suppose it was an awkward time to ask him to explain."

"Fenris," Alessandra says. "I nearly broke my promise to you."

_Just promise you'll come back to me._ After they quarreled about Fenris coming along, and then made up, and he conceded, and she prepared to depart while Fenris looked on, finally meeting her at the door for a kiss and a promise.

_Just come back to me._

"But you didn't," Fenris says gently. "You're here, and I'm in no mood to be cross with you, Alessandra. I'm just glad you're home."

He rises, and she to meet him with a lingering, gentler kiss. Wine on her lips, but her touch still steady. She holds him close, and he holds her.

He could ask for more promises, but they would not change who Hawke is. Or why he loves her. 

So instead he just kisses her, and thanks the Maker she is home safe, and he lets that be enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
